Rachel Hudson is a natural history illustrator gaining wider recognition for her collaborations with conservation partners to champion species at risk. In 2022 she graduated with an MA in Illustration with full distinctions from Falmouth University. Since then, she has worked with the National Trust, Iceberg Press and is currently illustrating a book about the…
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Swift Awareness Week
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70 events celebrate the amazing SwiftUK Swift Awareness Week, which starts on Saturday 1 July, has 70 events running across the UK, from Devon to Aberdeenshire and from North Wales to East Sussex.It precedes the parliamentary debate on 10th July about the installation of nest sites for red listed urban birds like the swift in all…
RSPB/WTs/NT press release
Photo: Andy Hay/RSPB New study finds at least £4.4bn a year needed for nature and climate-friendly farming to meet legal targets UK and devolved governments must invest at least £4.4bn a year in nature and climate-friendly farming to meet environmental commitments. The RSPB, The Wildlife Trusts and the National Trust are calling for…
Significant ‘temporary’ ban on Fin Whale hunting by Iceland
An announcement by the government of Iceland https://www.mbl.is/200milur/frettir/2023/06/19/alraemdur_hvalveidaandstaedingur_maetir_a_islandsmi/ The whaling season for Fin Whales was going to open tomorrow but is now closed until 1 September – and let’s see what happens then. Icelandic media coverage of Sea Shepherd’s Paul Watson https://www.mbl.is/200milur/frettir/2023/06/19/alraemdur_hvalveidaandstaedingur_maetir_a_islandsmi/
Sunday book review – Wild Air by James Macdonald Lockhart
This book takes eight interesting bird species, Nightjar, Manx Shearwater, Dipper, Skylark, Raven, Black-throated Diver, Lapwing and Nightingale, and describes the author’s observations of them on repeat visits to particular sites. The chapters thus comprise pen portraits of the individual species and the author’s thoughts about them and the places they inhabit. The range of…
Guest blog – Reintroductons: what are we trying to achieve? by Anonymous
I am generally unkeen to publish anonymous pieces here, simply because people must take responsibility for their views, but I am persuaded in this case that it is appropriate. I don’t know who the author is but I would guess a male working in either a statutory or a voluntary conservation organisation, But that’s a…
Sunday book review – Solitary Bees by Ted Benton and Nick Owens
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I approach this book as someone who doesn’t know much at all about bees, solitary or otherwise, and would like to learn more. Does this book work for me? Very much so. As we would expect from a New Naturalist, this book is written by palpable experts and as we would hope, in this volume…
Sunday book review – 101 Curious Tales of East African Birds by Colin Beale
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Let’s get my only gripe about this book out of the way – it’s a silly title which gives a slightly false impression of the contents. These are not ‘curious’ tales they are 101 quite finely honed essays about the interesting biology of species that you might well see if you were birding in East…
Sunday book review – Cry of the Wild by Charles Foster
This book, out of 47 I reviewed in 2023, was one of two titles I chose as my wildlife book of the year – I recommend it highly. You can buy this book from Bookshop.org and I have set up a booklist to make that easy through this link https://uk.bookshop.org/shop/MarkAvery Disclosure: I am an affiliate…
Bank Holiday Monday book review – The Vegan Gardener
I’m not a vegan and I am a pretty unambitious gardener but I got something from this book. It’s a good introduction to gardening and the vegan bit is rather incidental to most of the book so don’t let that put you off if you have eaten steak tartare recently. As with many gardening…